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Comment: Michael Ross

In the late 1990s, a journalist working for RTE, who had dogged Charles Haughey for more than 20 years, was given to understand that the former taoiseach was on the brink of agreeing to be interviewed about his turbulent career.

A camera crew was put on notice, station management cleared a slot in that night’s television schedule and the journalist waited for the summons to Kinsealy. The call, however, never came.

Sean O Mordha had slightly better luck when making his series Seven Ages. Over several months, and several breakfasts in a Malahide hotel, O’Mordha earned his trust. But when O Mordha ventured a question on camera about the former taoiseach’s tribunal issues, Haughey retreated into a stony silence.

Others tried, without success, to secure his co-operation with mooted retrospectives, notably Noel Pearson, who along with Eamon Dunphy urged Haughey to counter the prevailing assessment of him. When Cathal O’Shannon